Sony is Acquiring Toshiba’s Image Sensing Facility For 19 Billion Yen

Toshiba’s image sensing business is reported to be under acquisition from rival Sony. The company announced recently about its plans to buy Toshiba’s image sensing business for a total amount of 19 billion Yen (around $155 million). The announcement has finally confirmed previous rumors about the plans of such a venture. For the good amount of money Sony will be getting Toshiba’s fabrication plant, employees and also equipment by the end of the fiscal year in March 31, 2016.

The operations of this newly acquired business will be under Sony’s new wholly owned subsidiary called Sony Semiconductor Corporation. This facility will be solely working for the production of image sensors alone even though Toshiba’s original image sensing facility used to manufacture memory controllers as well, along with image sensors.

The parties expect to offer the employees of Toshiba and its affiliates employed at the fabrication facilities to be transferred, as well as certain employees involved in areas such as CMOS image sensor engineering and design (approximately 1,100 employees in total), employment within the Sony Group, upon the completion of the Transfer

This particular move of buying one of Toshiba’s image sensing plant by Sony shows how the company is ready to maximize in one it key areas in particular. Sony is known for both its success in the image sensor market of most high end cameras and its camera components which have been used extensively in smartphones in the recent technology wave. Big companies like Apple, Google and Xiaomi all Sony’s sensors in some of their products, if not all, giving Sony an edge over its competitors. This is one of Sony’s booming business and they are building on it even more, that’s a good thing as long as their products maintain quality. Even though their own smartphones are not that popular with the general public their image sensors surely are.